\t\tNaval Agreement

July of the year I got married will never be forgotten, because this month I had the honor to solve three major cases with Sherlock Holmes and studied his methods of solving the case. These three cases are: "The Second Blood", "The Navy Agreement" and "The Tired Captain". The first case was of great importance and was involved in the kingdom's princes and nobles, so it has not been made public for many years. However, this case best reflects the value of his analysis methods in all Sherlock Holmes' cases. At the same time, it

It is also the most impressive one. I still keep the record of the facts of the case by Holmes to Mr. Dubk of the Paris Police Station and Fritz von Wolbo, a famous expert in Gdansk. They have spent a lot of money on this case, but in the end they have been in vain. This case may not be made public until the next century. Therefore, I have to publish the second case I have recorded first. This case has also been related to the fate of the country for a period of time, and the case is very unique.

When I was a student, I had a close friend named Percy Phelps. He was about the same age as me, but two levels higher than me. He was very smart and received all the rewards set up by the school. Because of his excellent grades, he graduated and received the scholarship needed to continue his studies at Cambridge University. I remember that he had several noble relatives. When I was a child, I heard about his uncle Lord Holderhurst, a famous Conservative politician. Not only did these relatives not let him benefit from school, but we often tease him on the sports field, hit his ankle with a toy iron ring, and enjoy it. However, after he entered society, he benefited from it. I seemed to have heard that he had found a good match in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with his own talents and his uncle's power. Later I gradually forgot about him, and it was not until I received the following letter from Wokingbrill Bray that I remembered that there was such a person, which read:

Dear Watson:

I believe you still remember "Tadpole" Phelps, when I was in the fifth grade and you were in the third grade. You may have heard that with the power of my uncle, I got the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work, and I was very trusted and respected. However, a terrible thing suddenly fell from the sky and ruined my future.

I don't want to tell you the details of this incident now. If you agree to my request, then I can tell you personally. I have been in a state of mind for nine weeks, I have just recovered and I am still very weak. Can you invite your friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes to come to me? Although the police station said that this matter was nothing but lost, I still want to hear Mr. Sherlock Holmes's opinion on this case. Please ask him to invite him and come to me as soon as possible. My life in this fearless and uneasy life is really like a year. Please explain to him that the reason why I didn't ask him in time was not that I didn't believe in his talents, but because I was in a disaster and was unconscious. Now my mind is clear, but I still dare not think too much. Because I am still very weak now, I am afraid that the old illness will recur. You must have seen that this is not my handwritten letter, but that I dictated and written by others. Please ask Holmes to come.

Your old alumnus Percy Phelps

After reading the letter, I couldn't calm down for a long time. He repeatedly asked me to invite Sherlock Holmes to his place. His attitude was really sympathetic. I was moved by him and decided to help him invite Sherlock Holmes. Of course, I knew Sherlock Holmes liked detectives very much. As long as someone believed him, he was always helpful. My wife and I agreed that we should tell Sherlock Holmes quickly, which would not be delayed for a minute. So after breakfast, I rushed to my old residence on Baker Street within an hour.

Sherlock Holmes was sitting at the table against the wall in his pajamas, concentrating on the chemical test. A large curved decanter was burning on the alcohol lamp, and the liquid in the bottle boiled violently, and the distilled liquid dripped into a two-liter gauge. When I walked in, he didn't raise his head. It seemed that his test must be very important, so I sat in the armchair and waited. He looked at the bottle and then the bottle. Each bottle sucked out a few drops of liquid with a straw, and finally took out a test tube filled with some solution and put it on the table. He held a litmus test paper in his right hand.

"Warson, you're here just in time," said Holmes. "If this test strip is still blue, then everything is normal. If it turns red, the solution can kill people." He immersed the paper in the test tube, and the test strip immediately turned into a dirty dark red. "Hey! That's true!" he shouted, "Warson, my business is over soon. The tobacco leaves are in Persian slippers, you go and get them." He turned to the desk, wrote a few telegrams in a hurry, and handed them to Xiaotingba, and then sat on the chair opposite me with his legs bent his knees.

"It was a very common murder just now," said Sherlock Holmes. "But I think the case you brought to me must be much more interesting. Watson, you went to the Three Treasures Temple for nothing, what happened?"

I handed him the letter and he looked carefully.

"This letter didn't reveal much to us, right?" said Sherlock Holmes as he handed the letter back to me.

"Almost nothing was said." I said.

"But the handwriting is interesting."

"But this handwriting is not his."

"It's not his, it's the word "woman."

"It's a man's word," I said loudly.

"No, this is the word "woman", it was written by an unusual woman. You see, our investigation has not yet begun. We already know that the client is closely related to a person. And this person, no matter what the point is, is different. I am already very interested in this case. If you have no objection, we will immediately go to Woking to see the unlucky diplomat and the woman who wrote the letters on his oral statement."

We were lucky to catch the early train at Waterloo Station. In less than an hour, we arrived in the fir and south bushes of Woking. Brillbrey was a lonely mansion located on an open land. It was only a few minutes away from the station. After we entered the business card, we were led into a living room with elegant decorations. After a few minutes, a very strong man greeted us warmly. He was almost forty years old, but his cheeks were rosy and his eyes were cheerful, which made people feel that he was still an innocent naughty boy.

"I'm glad you're here," he said as he shook hands with us. "Percy looked forward to you all morning. Oh, my poor old friend, he would not let go of any hope! His parents asked me to come and receive you because they were sad when they mentioned it."

"We don't know the details of the matter yet," said Sherlock Holmes. "I think you are not from their family."

Our new acquaintance was surprised, and after looking down, we burst into laughter.

"You saw the abbreviation of 'JH' on my necklace pendant!" he said, "I thought you had any special abilities. My name is Joseph Harrison. Phelps is about to marry my sister Anne. I can be regarded as one of his in-laws. You will see my sister in Phelps' room, and she has been taking care of him for two months. Let's go to his room now, Phelps is in a hurry to see you."

Phelps' room and the reception room were on the same floor. The room was arranged like a living room and a bedroom, with flowers everywhere. A pale and weak young man lay on the couch. The sofa was close to the window, and the rich fragrance of flowers and the pleasant air of early summer floated in from the open window. A woman sat beside him, and when she saw us in, she quickly stood up.

"Do I want to avoid it, Phelps?" she asked.

Phelps grabbed her hand and refused to let her go.

"Hello! Watson," said Phelps affectionately, "You have a beard, and I almost can't recognize you. I think you must not recognize me either. This, I think, is your famous friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

After I briefly introduced them, I sat down with Holmes. The sturdy middle-aged man walked out, but his sister had to stay because of her hand being pulled by Phelps. She was a very striking woman, slightly short and chunky figure, and not very well-proportioned, but she had a very beautiful olive face, a pair of black Italian eyes, and a dark cloud-like black hair. Compared to her gorgeous appearance, her fiancé's pale face looked more haggard and weak.

"I don't want to waste your time," Phelps said, sitting up from the sofa, "Tell you honestly, I am a happy and accomplished person, and I am about to get married, but something suddenly ruined my future.

"Warson may have told you. I work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and because of my uncle Lord Holderhurst, I was quickly promoted to a confidential department. My uncle is the Foreign Minister of this government. I always accomplished some important tasks that he gave me. I have won his full affirmation and trust by virtue of my talent.

“About ten weeks ago, on May 23, he called me to his private office, praised me for doing a great job, and handed me a new important task.

"He took out a gray roll from the desk and said, 'This is the original of the secret agreement signed between Britain and Italy. Unfortunately, some rumors have been revealed in the newspapers. Therefore, it is important that no more information can be disclosed. The French and Russian embassies are trying to find out the contents of these documents at all costs. If it weren't for a very important time to copy a copy, I wouldn't have taken it out of my desk. Do you have a safe in your office?'

“'Yes, uncle.'

"'You just lock the agreement in your safe. I'll tell you first that you must copy it until others leave work before leaving, so that others can't peek. After copying, lock the original and copy in the safe, and hand it over to me tomorrow morning."

"I'll get the documents..."

"Sorry, please stop for a moment," said Sherlock Holmes, "Are you two present at that time?"

"Yes."

“Is it in a big room?”

“The room is thirty feet square.”

"Did you talk in the middle of the room?"

"Yes, it's almost in the middle."

"Isn't the voice loud?"

"My uncle has always spoken very little, and I barely spoke."

"Okay," said Sherlock Holmes narrowed his eyes, "you keep talking!"

"I followed his advice and waited patiently for the other staff to leave. A man named Charles Gorot had some business to finish. So I let him stay in the office alone, and I went for dinner myself. When I came back, he had already left. I hurriedly took out the documents from the safe and wanted to copy them as soon as possible. Because I knew that Joseph - Mr. Harrison, you just met, was in the city and was going to take the eleven o'clock train back to Woking, and I wanted to catch the train as much as possible.

"When I took out this agreement, I felt that it was really important. My uncle did not exaggerate it. Without closer inspection, I knew that the content was about our Kingdom of Great Britain's position on the Three Kingdoms Alliance. This agreement also reserved the countermeasures that our country would take when the French navy in the Mediterranean was completely superior to the Italian navy. The issues involved in the agreement were purely naval. The agreement was finally signed by senior officials of the negotiations. After I roughly looked through it, I sat down and copied it.

"This is a document written in French, very long. It has twenty-six articles. I copied it as fast as possible, but I only copied nine by nine o'clock. I thought at the time that I couldn't catch the train at eleven o'clock. Due to the fatigue of all day and the fact that I didn't eat enough for dinner, I felt drowsy and drowsy. I really wanted to have a cup of coffee to sober up my head. There was a janitor downstairs who stayed in the small doorman all night. According to convention, he should make coffee with an alcohol lamp for every employee who worked over night. So, I rang the bell to summon him.

"What is strange is that the one who came to me was a tall and ugly old woman with an apron around her waist. She said she was the wife of the janitor and was doing chores here. I asked her to make coffee.

"I copied two more pieces, and I was even more sleepy. So I stood up and walked around the house for a few times, moving my legs. But the coffee was not delivered for a long time. I wanted to know why, so I opened the door and wanted to go downstairs to look. From the office where I copied the documents, there was a straight corridor. The light was very dark, and it was the only exit of my office. At the end of the corridor was a turning staircase, and next to the aisle below the stairs was the small gatekeeper of the doorman. There was a small platform in the middle of the stairs, and there was another staircase to the right of the small platform to lead to the corridor of the side door. This side door was specially used for servants and was also a shortcut for the staff to come to work from Charles Street. This is a simple picture of that place."

"Please keep saying it, I remember everything you said," said Sherlock Holmes.

"Please note that the key to this case is the key. I walked down the stairs and saw the wardrobe sleeping soundly in the doorman. The coffee on the alcohol lamp had boiled and overflowed onto the floor. I lifted the pot and turned off the alcohol lamp. Just as I reached out to wake the sleeping wardrobe, suddenly the bell ringing above his head and he woke up suddenly.

"'Mr. Phelps!' he said, looking at me in a daze.

“‘I’m seeing if the coffee has been cooked.’

"'I'm sorry, I fell asleep while I was cooking.' He looked at me, looked up at the doorbell that was still shaking, and was very surprised.

"'Sir, since you are here, then, who is ringing the bell?" he asked.

"'Ring the bell!' I shouted, 'What bell?'

“‘The electric bell just now was pressed from your office.’

"My heart was startled, and to say, someone went to my office. But my crucial agreement was placed on the table. I ran upstairs like crazy, but there was no one in the corridor. Mr. Holmes, there was no one in my office. Everything was the same as when I left, except that the document I copied was originally stolen, and only the copy was left on the table."

Sherlock Holmes sat straight on the chair, rubbing his hands. It was obvious that he was already very interested in the case. He asked in a low voice: "What should you do at that time?"

"I immediately thought that the thief must have gone up and down the stairs from the side door. If he was walking on the main door, I would definitely be able to meet him."

"Will he keep hiding in the office or in the corridor? Didn't you say the corridor is very light?"

"This is absolutely impossible. There is no place to hide in the office or the corridor, and even a mouse cannot hide it."

"Thank you, please continue."

"When the janitor saw me being shocked, he knew something was wrong, so he followed me upstairs. We ran down the corridor to the steep stairs leading to Charles Street. The side door at the bottom was closed, but it was not locked. We pushed the door open and rushed out. I remember that the nearby clock struck three times when we went downstairs, and it was nine to three."

"This is very important." Sherlock Holmes said, recording the time on the cuffs of his shirt.

"It was dark that night, and it was drizzling, and there was no pedestrian on Charles Street, but Whitehall Road at the end of the street was still as usual, with constant traffic and pedestrians. We were so anxious that we didn't even put on our hats, so we ran along the sidewalk. At the corner on our right, there was a policeman standing.

“'Theft happened,' I gasped, 'Someone stole a very important document from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Have you seen someone walk over here?'

"'I've just stood here for a quarter of an hour, sir.' said the policeman, 'I saw only one person in the past, a tall old lady wearing a paisley shawl.'

“‘Oh, that’s my wife!’ The janitor said loudly, ‘Is there no one else coming?’

“‘There’s no one else.’

"'So, the thief must have escaped from the corner on his left hand,' said the janitor, pulling my sleeve.

"But I didn't believe him, I thought he wanted to lead me away. So I asked the police: 'Where did that woman go?'

"'I don't know, sir, I only noticed her walking over, but didn't pay much attention to where she was going. But she seemed to be walking in a hurry.'

“‘How long has she been walking?’

“'Well, I haven't walked for a few minutes.'

“‘In less than five minutes?’

“‘Yes, less than five minutes.’

"'Don't waste time, sir, every minute is important now,' shouted the janitor, 'Please believe me, this is definitely not done by my wife. Let's go to the left of this street. Okay, if you don't go, I'll go,' he said, and ran to the other end.

"I immediately chased after him and grabbed his sleeve.

“‘Where do you live?’ I asked him.

"'XXXIVI Lane, Brixton,' he replied, 'But don't act too arbitrary, Mr. Phelps. We may find out what we go to the left of the street.'

"I think it would be no harm if he did it according to his opinion. So the two of us and the police hurried over there. The street was full of traffic, people came and went, and everyone was rushing to go home early on this drizzling night. No one could tell us who had walked by.

"We had to go back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and searched the stairs and corridors, but found nothing. The corridor leading to the office was paved with a beige painted cloth, and if someone walked by, it was easy to leave footprints on it. We checked it carefully, but no half of the footprints were found."

“Did it rain all the time that night?”

"The rain started at about seven o'clock."

"So, that woman entered the office around nine o'clock. She was wearing mud-dipped boots, so why didn't she leave footprints?"
To be continued...